Archive for the ‘energy policy’ Category

The President has a bold plan to acheive energy independence for America

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

The President outlines his bold plan to free America of foreign energy sources:

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed.

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Posted in economics, energy policy | 5 Comments »

Peak Oil and Decentralization

Monday, July 7th, 2008

One of the central functions of government under state capitalism is to subsidize the inputs to large-scale business enterprise, like energy and transportation.  The railroad land grants, the civil aviation system and jumbo jet industry created almost entirely at government expense, the Interstate Highway System, a foreign policy aimed at providing cheap and abundant oil for the American economy…  all these things have a massive distorting effect in favor of large scale organization and economic centralization.

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Posted in energy policy, transportation | 14 Comments »

Revealed at Last: The Greatest Threat to "Liberaltarianism!"

Friday, July 4th, 2008

Certain liberal talk-radio hosts.

Consider.

DC’s Air America outlet is kind of lame. Yesterday it ran a Thom Hartmann broadcast about Heller from before Heller was even decided. (Looks like it was the June 17 show.) Hartmann had on a scholar from the Independent Institute, Stephen P. Halbrook, and proceeded to badger him about standing armies. The whole point of a militia, Hartmann insisted, was to obviate the need for large standing armies. So how come you’re not trying to [SOMETHING that would make standing armies go away, though Hartmann never quite said what] instead of trying to make sure DC drug lords can get ahold of a Mac-10? My question is, how ignorant do you have to be, how little due diligence on your guests do you need to undertake, to be so clueless about how the Independent Institute feels about standing armies?

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Posted in energy policy, liberalism, paternalism | 3 Comments »

Green Omelets and Broken Eggs

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

I got a lot out of the comment thread to Alex Tabarrok’s post about Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution from earlier this month. It seems pretty inarguable to me that Borlaug’s work saved many lives in its day. It seems debatable whether what the present moment calls for now is more of the same. During the era of cheap oil, there was real economic - if not ecological - sense in pumping plants up with massive inputs of fossil fuel. Now? I’m honestly unsure what a post-hydrocarbon agriculture that can feed billions of people will (can) look like.

Posted in Big government, corporate state, energy policy, environment | 3 Comments »

How Do You Give The Middle Finger In Semaphore?

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Richard Posner writes:

Expanded drilling in U.S. territory (including our territorial waters) will reduce both U.S. dependence on foreign oil and the wealth of foreign oil-producing countries, many of which are hostile or potentially hostile to the United States. These are important benefits.

A friend of mine tweets, “this is simply untrue…Dependence would not be reduced in any meaningful sense.” He’s correct of course, but there’s more wrong with this claim than just the factual inaccuracy of the idea that offshore drilling can meaningfully reduce our dependence on foreign oil. (more…)

Posted in Foreign Policy, economics, energy policy, environment, free markets, globalization, trade | 6 Comments »